✔️As Neighbors Do | (Spencer Reid)

Name

name
noun
a word or set of words by which a person is known, addressed, or referred to.

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Max is pretty sure she had been doing a good job of hiding the calls, and continuing to avoid suspicion.

Spencer never mentions the calls or pushes her on anything, not in the bath tub, or when they watch the sunsets and sunrises on her couch with Thai food.

He doesn't ask in his bed, or against the book shelf, or when they watch every Lord of the Rings movie, or when they take walks in the park, or sit around and read books of their off days.

He doesn't ask, and Max thinks she might could live the rest of her life like this, pretending.

Maybe that's exactly what he's needed too- someone to pretend to be normal with.

Because she was starting to feel like she had good life, for once, or at least a carefully curated one.

She liked being "Max Brenner" more than ever.

He starts telling her everything: about his mom, about Mauve, about the Dilaudid, about Gideon, about prison, and even about Cat Adams.

Max is a great listener, after all.

He gives her the story behind every scar on his body.

Each story might make a truly normal person want to spill their guts in reciprocation, but not Max.

Each story made Max think about how strong and pure he was.

How Spencer took bad hands he had been dealt, and came out better.

She tried to ignore how different she felt than him on the inside.

But always in the back of her mind, she wonders how she would respond to certain questions... because the calls from prison didn't stop coming, particularly when they are together.

She continues to hide them, pressing 'ignore' every time.

She starts to believe that maybe she's fooled him in to second guessing any suspicions he had.

Or better yet, maybe it was all in her head to begin with, and he's always believed she is just plain old sweet Max Brenner.

With everything he has been through, he needs someone like that, she thought.

She could be that, if she keeps playing her cards right.

And she was, until a few months pass, and she screws everything up, again.

Because as most know, all games must come to an end.

"Max wake up. Wake up!" She hears someone say from a distance.

She hears gun shots, and ripping sounds, and laughter, and yelling, and her only thought is...

Fight!

"Ow! Max!" she hears, and she opens her eyes.

Spencer is looking at her with shock, a hand covering nail marks from just below his collar bone, down his bare chest, and a shiny red mark under his eye.

"What the hell Max?" He says.

When she doesn't say anything his mood shifts.

He's mad.

He scoffs and walks into her bathroom, and she can see marks on his shoulder as his back turns.

She follows him and finds him wetting a rag, and dabbing at the cut on his chest, blood coming off on it.